


What Girls are Like

by Monochromehobo



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Billy is doing some deep thinking about gender and sexuality, Deep Thinking, Exploration, Exploration of Gender, Exploration of sexuality, F/M, Gay Billy Hargrove, Gender Identity, Gender Issues, Gender Roles, Runaway Max, Sexuality Crisis
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-05
Updated: 2019-06-05
Packaged: 2020-04-08 09:22:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 898
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19104250
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Monochromehobo/pseuds/Monochromehobo
Summary: If she could be bags under the eyes and a clenched fist, why then, could he not be soft lips and a chaste kiss?





	What Girls are Like

**Author's Note:**

> Billy ponders what it means to be a man or woman and why he is attracted to or isn't to specific people. Basically Billy does some deep thinking and realizes he is gay. Based off of Max's description of Billy's sexuality in Runaway Max. Reader or nameless female character/ Billy Hargrove except Billy is OD gay and female character probs is too.

Billy glanced over at her, her head hanging out the window of the Camaro as he swerved over the road. She’d stick her head out the window and scream herself hoarse to the sound of Led Zeppelin, Guns n’ Roses, or whatever new cassette Billy had bought that week. Billy couldn’t help but love having someone to ride with late at night when he just felt like driving his fist through a wall. Most people who got in the car with him felt one emotion, fear. But she embraced the speeding, the swerving, and the loud music that he’d blast late into the night and well into the early hours of the morning. He looked over at her wrinkled T-shirt that had crumpled it’s way well over half way up her back. Billy reached over and ran a thumb over the exposed skin. She fell back into the seat with a thud, giving Billy a wicked grin. “So are we finding a place to pull over tonight or what, Pretty Boy?” 

 

Billy remembered the first time they’d gone out together. She’d asked him to pick her up well after 10, and he watched her wiggle her way out of a window and hop the fence. She slid into the car before Billy even got a chance to get out and open the door for her. Since then they’d found themselves speeding in the Camaro until dawn and watching the sun rise, with beers in their hands and cigarettes on their lips. 

They’d been sitting on the beach enjoying the morning breeze coming off the ocean. California summers could be brutal, but there was nothing like getting your feet in the sand before it became unbearably hot. Billy looked over at her, swigging her beer, thinking that this isn’t what girls are supposed to be like. They’re not supposed to make you feel vulnerable, they’re not supposed to drink beers with you until you pass out. She wasn’t anything like Billy thought girls were supposed to be, obsessed with appearances, clingy, the works. 

Billy never felt like he had to run away when things got serious, because they didn’t. She didn’t want commitment, and she made that clear from the beginning. Even when Billy told her he was moving at the end of the summer she just shrugged and said, “Well we better make this summer a memorable one then.” 

 

Billy didn’t even like the fucking, part of the relationship. He never did. With all his past relationships he was just going through the motions, doing something he felt like he was supposed to do just to get through the months and feel a little something. Even if that something was disgust or anger. When things got serious he’d drop a girl faster than a hot potato. Sex still felt empty, but when they hung out late at night he didn’t feel indifference, not disgust. Content. Content just being two angry kids together; no pressure. But it always felt like something was missing, like he’d missed some crucial element when studying for a quiz and now he’s staring at the page, trying to make sense of it all. 

She was never what girls were supposed to be. She was rough around the edges, angry to her core, and a fire behind her eyes that Billy recognized too well. Billy thought maybe he could love her. Love the way that she was all crumbled band T-shirts and the feeling of driving with the windows down even though it’s way too cold out. 

No, she wasn’t what girls were supposed to be like, but Billy was far from what boys are supposed to be like. And if she could be bags under the eyes and a clenched fist, why then could Billy not be soft lips and a chaste kiss? Billy was more often than not looking in the mirror; perfect curls, and soft eyelashes. 

They found comfort in finding that point where they could fall short of every expectation held of them and sit on a common ground built of anger, the kiss of a cigarette on their lips, and a Led Zeppelin cassette. Two kids self destructing.

The more Billy thought about it the more he realized that the reason he liked her so much was exactly that. That she wasn’t what girls were supposed to be like, she was more or less like what boys were. And maybe she made Billy realize he was a little bit of what girls were supposed to be like too. It was only when he got to Hawkins that he realized that he didn’t like women at all. Just the thought of being with a girl who acted like what he thought they were supposed to, a girl who looked like what he thought they were supposed to, made him sick to his stomach. That’s when he really shut down, going through the motions with anyone he could get his hands on, desperate to feel something, anything. The disgust and the rage drowned out what was happening at home, and the booze and the cigarettes were almost enough to drown out his own thoughts. He missed being able to self destruct, with the comfort of someone he knew felt the same way, but he could never bring himself to call. To ring her up and tell her what he knew all along.


End file.
